Opening Moves

“Except for air, where the losses have been murderous. Operation Kurgan was a brilliant success and their ground attack assets were decimated. Huge casualties were inflicted upon their command and control facilities, as well as their early-warning sites.”

He noted that the officers were all consuming the figures in front of them so paused to draw their attention back to him.

“The air regiments have suffered grievous loss in maintaining our command of the daylight airspace, for that IS what we have Comrades. Night time is a different matter, and as you will all know, we are suffering problems with logistics because of deep penetration heavy bomber raids on rail and bridge facilities.”

He added as evenly as he could.

“I have no need to remind you of that problem Comrades.”

Konev choked silently on a piece of chewy ham and Malinin took advantage of the respite to swallow some water.

“Our night capabilities are greatly eroded; fighter squadrons have been reduced to well below 50% strength in the vast majority of cases, night-bombers…”

Night Bombers; well they all knew that story.

“The Comrade General Secretary has ordered a review of our night air provisions as a matter of urgency.”

That this review was not to be conducted by the commander of Soviet Air Forces Europe was because the man was already in his grave, a result of a visitation from an NKVD squad.

“On the ground we are looking extremely healthy.”

Slapping the pointer against Denmark, he started his full brief.

“The Germans have two divisions, their former garrison troops, sat opposite our forces in Denmark. No aggression, except patrolling. No problem for us, although note that the Fascists went over in record time, and as complete unit’s.”

That was a monkey on everyone’s back.

“Comrade’s Beria and Pekunin have means to ensure that such cooperation between the Fascists and the allies will not be so smooth elsewhere, and will in fact further undermine their capability and capacity to fight.”

No one asked because they all knew Malinin didn’t know either.

“The purpose of our controlled, broad front attack was to draw enemy forces into disposition as early as possible and to conceal our intentions as best we could.”

“It was also felt that it was important to permit Diaspora to get underway and affect Allied strategic thinking before we showed our complete hand.

Everyone there knew that and not everyone had agreed with it. However.

“This seems to have worked exactly as was planned, as can be witnessed by the document Comrade Marshall Zhukov has just discussed with you.” Not so much of a discussion they all thought, but the list was impressive none the less, and if those soldiers were going to the land of the slant-eyes instead of Europe then that was all the better for them.

“Our attacks on their command and control were not as successful as we were first told. We discovered this very morning that Montgomery is actually alive, but incapacitated. The other major players we did not hurt. Losses amongst our paratroopers and special personnel were extreme, as we expected.”

Wishing to be upbeat, he ventured into an area initially of little concern to the military minds there.

“The Zilant operation was wholly successful, with the four locations purged as was hoped. Not of great significance for us of course but with the bonus of many dead experienced allied officers, including some Corps and Divisional commanders of key American and British units.”

There was no point in mentioning casualties.

“The Allies in defence are quite stubborn, although some units are better than others. Intelligence officers in your respective headquarters have compiled a list of fighting qualities based on combat reports, and in general those divisions which arrived in Europe within the last six months of the fighting tend to be less capable than those who arrived before.”

“In general, it was how we were expecting. The Americans are more aggressive than their British Allies, but generally not as competent in the attack, making many basic errors that have been punished by our forces.”

A hubbub of agreement from those whose forces had engaged.

“A word of caution Comrades. Our initial assessments of the Allies fighting abilities may have been slightly inaccurate. We cannot underestimate either of these nations’ forces. The British may not be aggressive but, as Hamburg and Northern Germany have already demonstrated, they are the devil to shift.”

Many eyes shifted to Malinovsky who could only move his weight uncomfortably in his chair by way of agreement.

“Some American units are fanatics. Their paratroopers for one. Some of their infantry units stand when even the German would probably have moved back.”

Most there knew that and grudgingly admired their adversary because of it.

“There is a report from Comrade Marshall Konev’s Front of American Red Indians going wild, breaking a Guards unit in hand to hand combat”

Konev stood with purpose.